Normally, it's business as usual for veteran receiver Cole Beasley, but one rep last week got him a little extra pumped.

Starting safety Byron Jones gave Beasley a shove off the line. Beasley responded by breaking free and beating Jones to the outside. Dak Prescott put a nice back-shoulder ball over the top of Jones and Beasley allowed his athleticism to do the rest, leaping to make the grab.

"I've been trying to expand my route tree for a long time," Beasley said. "That stuff is only going to help the stuff that I'm good at. Any time we can get stuff like that going and any routes like that, more down the field, more vertical, that's only going to help my game underneath. That stuff is big for just setting up other things that I do."

His increased work on the outside and expanded route tree could also help the Cowboys find more situations to get rookie Ryan Switzer on the field with Beasley.

The 5-8, 180-pound Beasley was targeted a team-high 98 times last season, finishing with a career-high 75 receptions for 833 yards and five touchdowns. The story added Beasley continues to win one-on-one battles in camp.

With Ezekiel Elliott staring at a six-game suspension pending the result of an appeal, Dak Prescott will be asked to do more, but maybe not run more in 2017. If Elliott is out, the Cowboys will rely on their tailbacks Darren McFadden, Rod Smith and Alfred Morris to make up for the absence of last season's leading rusher.

"He's going to run anyway because of his game, his mobility, but I think you're going to lean on the side of picking your times when you do it," offensive coordinator Scott Linehan said of Prescott. "I think if you do it a lot it certainly can be a little bit of a distraction to what you're trying to do. That's why you have runners. But when a quarterback has that element, it's an advantage. So I think the key to quarterbacks running is they know what kind of a run we're trying to get. If they can’t get 3 yards and we want 4 yards, 3 yards is OK, too. Don't take hits. That's my approach anyway."

The story said Prescott running the ball won't become a staple of the Cowboys' offense, even with Elliott scheduled to miss six games. They don't want to risk Prescott to injury even if he is 6-foot-2, 238 pounds. During training camp, Prescott has broken off a few long runs in the zone-read.

Ezekiel Elliott touched the ball on 35 percent of the Cowboys offensive plays last season, but Dak Prescott insists he won’t have more pressure on him without the star running back.

“We’ve got great running backs,” the Cowboys quarterback said in a Tuesday media session, via the team’s Facebook Live stream. “Darren McFadden and Alfred Morris, those guys have had a lot of success in this league for a long time, so it’s just an opportunity for them to come in and get more reps in his time off.”

Prescott admitted teams stacked the box at times against Elliott, giving one-on-ones on the outside. That may change without Elliott in the lineup but Prescott said he still expects the offense to run smoothly.

Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was the breakout star of the NFL last season, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

That’s the word from Cowboys Executive V.P. Stephen Jones, who said Prescott is committed to improving and will be better than he was as a rookie.

“He knows he’s got to take his game to another level,” Jones said. “The great ones get better each year. I think he expects that from himself, I know he puts in the work, I know he’s a leader, the team responds to him, the team wants to play hard for him. That’s rare. I think he’s going to answer the bell and I think he’s going to be better than he was last year.”

The story said the team wants Prescott to be the face of the franchise and they think he's up for the challenge. With a strong offensive line and a boatload of weapons, including a great running game, Prescott should have some fantasy value as a QB2 or streaming play.

Cowboys Inactives
Morris Claiborne CB
Tyrone Crawford DE
Justin Durant LB
Demarcus Lawrence DE
Alfred Morris RB
Mark Sanchez QB
Cedric Thornton DT

Related players: Dak Prescott, Dez Bryant, Ezekiel Elliott

This was fully expected all day despite the Cowboys clinching the top seed and a first round bye leaving this a meaningless game in Week 16. Dallas HC Jason Garrett said players would get a normal workload tonight against the Lions. That could perhaps change should the game get out of hand, but for now Bryant, Prescott and Elliott are solid starts.

The Cowboys have nothing to gain and much to lose in their final two games of the season, but coach Jason Garrett doesn’t believe in resting his starters. And so he won’t.

Garrett reiterated today that he will give starting quarterback Dak Prescott, starting running back Ezekiel Elliott and everyone else a normal workload tonight against the Lions, even though the Cowboys have already clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

“We like the rhythm of our offense and how Dak is playing,” Garrett said, via Ed Werder of ESPN.

In other words, Garrett thinks the risk of Prescott getting rusty if he sits out for three weeks (the final two regular season games as well as the Cowboys’ bye week) is greater than the risk of Prescott getting hurt if he plays the next two weeks. Same appears to be the case with Elliott. This comes despite the loss of Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota to leg injuries this week in other NFL action. It's probably safe to assume the Cowboy fantasy stars will at least start with a full workload, but if the game gets out of hand either way, it's possible the backups could play more.

In the immediate aftermath of Dak Prescott doubling his season interception total and starting a one-game losing streak, the Cowboys were quick to insist that the rookie quarterback was still their guy.

(The fact those interceptions went from two to four and he had won 11 straight prior to that likely led to their conviction.)

But when questions cropped up in the aftermath about the possible availability of Tony Romo and what it would take for Prescott to lose his grip on the starting job, Cowboys coach Jason Garrett was just as forceful.

“You can make it as simple or as complex as you want to make it,” Garrett said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “It’s pretty simple for us: Dak’s going to play quarterback as we go forward.”

As the story said, there’s reason to wonder, as Prescott has failed to top 200 yards in any of his last three games, and was shaky at best against the Giants Sunday night, with Dez Bryant continuing to be a bit of an afterthought in the offense (catching one pass for 10 yards against the Giants).